I had planned to stay out of the Andrew Young, Barack Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton fray. That was before I watched the video. Then, I couldn't resist. Here's my latest ebonyjet.com column.
analyzing andrew young is easy. getting him on the couch is a different matter.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
By Monroe Anderson
While Oprah Winfrey was putting together the final touches on her travel plans to Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire where she'd help Barack Obama draw record crowds at his campaign rallies, Andrew Young's video was going viral.
So by now, you may have seen –or read-- Young pontificating on why he thinks Obama is too young to be the next U.S. president and what he thinks of Hillary and Bill Clinton. "I want Barack Obama to be president," Young says on tape. "In 2016."
Young expressed concern that while Sen. Clinton is surrounded by quite a few black advisors Obama has very few, a concern, he said, because, "To put a brother in there by himself is to set him up for crucifixion."
Candidate Obama, like candidate Clinton, and unlike candidate Mitt Romney, has enough top advisors who are black, to help keep the Romans at bay. The experience-versus-inexperience argument pales just as much as the light-on-black-advisors argument. A President Obama administration will be drawn from the same Democratic pool of advisers as would a President Hillary Clinton or a President John Edwards administration. President Obama could appoint former President Bill Clinton to a cabinet position -– something his wife would not be allowed to do by law.
In the video, which is a recording from a September 5 TV interview on Atlanta's "Newsmakers Live," you can see Young saying what I'm embarrassed to say that he said. But while I was embarrassed, others were incensed. The Jack and Jill Politics blog was so turned off by Young, who went on to describe Bill Clinton as "every bit as black as Barack," that it declared: "Andrew Young, I Hereby Revoke Your Black Card."
Personally, I prefer not to kick Jimmy Carter's former U.N. ambassador to the curb but rather, respectfully assist him to a permanent sideline seat where all cameras and microphones are banned.
Andy Young, after all, is a civil rights icon. He bears many scars from the early struggle. He was a lieutenant in Dr. Martin Luther King's movement. He was at the civil rights leader's side when an assassin's bullet struck him down at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. He was a comfort to widow Coretta Scott King for many years after her husband's death. And he went on to establish a successful political career of his own.
Andy Young has not only lived history, he's made it. He may have, as that old axiom goes, forgotten more history than Obama knows. And that may go to the heart of the matter.
Young, I fear, has forgotten too much. He's apparently forgotten how Maynard Jackson, at 35, was considered a young Turk who should wait his turn before attempting to become Atlanta's first black mayor in 1973. Had Jackson waited for more experience, then Young may never have become Atlanta's second black mayor.
Young has obviously forgotten that Bill Clinton was 46 when he became president -– one year older than Obama is now. Or that the U.S. Constitution only requires that the president be 35 years old.
Young may have also forgotten that it's better not to think aloud or to speak loudly while not thinking. The civil rights leader resigned last year from a short-lived position as "image builder" for Wal-Mart. He unexpectedly stepped down after he told the Los Angeles Sentinel, an African-American weekly newspaper, that Jewish, Arab and Korean shop owners had "ripped off" urban communities for years, "selling us stale bread, and bad meat and wilted vegetables."
Young's undiplomatic quote on Jews, Arabs and Koreans was about as helpful to Wal-Mart as his equally undiplomatic quote about Bill being as black as Obama and that, "He's probably gone with more black women than Barack."
The 75-year-old former Atlanta mayor added that he was "just clowning" about that one.
Somehow, I don't think Hillary is amused.
Monroe Anderson is an award-winning journalist who penned op-ed columns for both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. He is a regular contributor to Ebonyjet.com.
Stumble It!
